


Commander's Log: Lazarus Cell

by spectacledotter



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canon Divergent Worldbuilding, F/F, Gen, Mass Effect 2, Novelization, POV First Person, Personal Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-22 07:09:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14303496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectacledotter/pseuds/spectacledotter
Summary: A novelization of Mass Effect 2.Diana Shepard wakes up in a station gripped by chaos, and from there the chaos never ends. Forced to ally with the enemy of her enemy and unable or unwilling to fully confront the true meaning of what happened to her, she throws herself into the mission given to her. Saving humanity is something she can do. Saving her own humanity might be harder... if she even has any at all.Diana Shepard knows who she is, but the creatures she fights know her as someone else entirely. As the final strike nears, one question grips at her heart: What did the Lazarus Project truly revive?





	1. Bolshevik-Backed Frankenstein

"There. On the monitor. Something's wrong."

Light. Voices. I don't know these voices, but I know their words.

"She's reacting to outside stimuli. Showing an awareness of her surroundings."

I feel hardness beneath me, cold and smooth, rising slightly around parts of me. My body? Yes--arms and legs attached to a torso. Body. I'm lying in a groove shaped around me, and I have a body, and it breathes and blinks, and I can move my head.

I am _alive._

"My God, Miranda--I think she's waking up!"

There are faces in my vision. The people talking. A man and woman, both human. She glances down at me. I can move more parts of myself now, but it's difficult, like I'm struggling to push my thoughts down to my body. Every breath I take echoes back to me.

"Dammit, Wilson, she's not ready yet! Give her the sedative!"

I want to speak but my body won't let me. I manage to raise a hand, trying to get the woman's attention. I am awake! I can hear!

"Shepard, don't try to move." The woman looks down at me, and she gently puts my arm back down. "Just lie still. Try to stay calm."

Shepard… Is that my name? No. No, my name is something else. Isn't it?

"Heart rate still climbing. Brain activity is off the charts!" I can't see the man, but he sounds panicked. The woman's hand is still on my arm, but she's looking away, at him.

My heart is pounding as hard as my breathing. The air seems to be getting heavier. Shepard--I know that name. What is it?

The woman has left me. I follow her movement with my head; I can still do that much, even as the air turns to water around me. "Stats pushing into the red zone. It's not working!" the man tells her, and she pushes him away from the machines he was standing at.

"Another dose! Now!" she barks at him.

Something floods through my body. I exhale, and all my energy leaves me along with my breath. My body is shutting down, piece by piece.

"Heart rate dropping," says the man. "Stats falling back into normal range. That was too close. We almost lost her."

The woman's face is in my vision again, but she's looking at him. "I told you your estimates were off. Run the numbers again." Their voices are strange. Muted. Fading away.

Her face turns to me, and I stare at her until she, too, fades away.

* * *

This time, it happens all at once. Instead of the slow realizations of before, my eyes snap open in a rush of consciousness. I'm lying on my back in some kind of bizarre glass coffin, though thankfully it has air. I can breathe. I can move. I press my hand to the glass above me, but nothing happens. I can't open it from in here.

There's a loud explosion from some distance above me, and the entire room shakes. I can't see the room around me clearly through the glass, and I have no way to know what's beyond or any indication of where I am. I'm not even truly dressed--there are white cloth strips bound around me enough to preserve modesty and nothing else. Maybe to allow maximum room for surgery.

The room shakes again. I can't stay here; I need to open this box. I feel something building in me, like an electric charge, a power begging to be released, and I project it outwards. The lid of the box flies off, crashing into the far side of the room, thrown by a wave of force I created.

Biotics. I remember now--I am biotic.

I climb from the box, but my legs have never held my weight before, and they collapse beneath me the first time I try to stand. The room I'm in is some kind of small medical lab, with a dozen monitors set up all around the box, and now some of them are a mangled mess thanks to my work with the lid. There's all kind of robotic surgery equipment, some I almost recognize and some I definitely don't.

I lean my weight against the box as I haul myself to my feet, letting them get accustomed to my weight. Everything hurts, but I can't let the pain stop me. The only thing I know about wherever I am is that I need to leave.

My legs get used to moving faster than I feared, like they actually do remember how. I go from staggering to walking in a few minutes. There's a word written on the wall of the lab: RECOVERY-2. This is definitely a medical lab. How long have I been here?

The doors have a symbol I know I've seen before but can attach no meaning to. A sort of elongated hexagon with a narrow strip cut out at the bottom corner. There's also the hologram in the middle which functions as a control panel for the door--and it's red, which means it's locked. I remember my biotics--if I can open a box, I can open a door. As I summon them, the door explodes, and I form a barrier around myself instead to protect myself from the blast. I didn't think about doing it; the barrier was totally reflexive.

My body remembers things I don't. I'll have to rely on it, for now.

I step carefully over the pieces of door. The frame is still smoking, but it seems safe enough to move through for now. There's a body--human--lying behind a stack of crates set up in front of the door. A barricade? This human was trying to protect the lab. Protect … me. I lean down to pick up the pistol and thermal clips lying near the human's hand, and I realize mine is much the same. A darker, more olive shade, but I have five fingers and the same proportions. I'm human.

Why does this surprise me?

The moment my fingers close over the grip of the pistol, memories overwhelm me. All the times I've fired a gun rush through my mind in an instant, but the last image stays with me. Aiming a pistol at an alien creature, his face somewhere between avian and insectoid but overtaken by cybernetic implants glowing a cold blue, begging him to resist what had taken hold of him. He raises his own gun to his neck, planting the barrel under his chin, and fires.

"Saren," I breathe, my lips forming the word more than my voice says it. Saren Arterius, the turian Spectre who tried to end life as we know it, by ushering in the Reapers. I remember it--I remember it all.

My hands load the thermal clip into the gun, like they've done a thousand times. I'm ready for whatever comes.

I vault over the barricade and land in a lounge for the scientists, complete with windows to the outside. The only light in the lounge comes from the stairs up, but I can see out the windows just fine. Stars. Nothing but stars. This is a space station.

"Shepard?" A woman's voice, coming over the intercom. "My God, Shepard, you're awake!"

I know this voice. This is the woman from when I first woke up.

"Thank God they didn't get to you," she's saying.

"Where the hell am I?" I ask. My voice is hoarse and raspy, and I can't make it very loud, but she hears me.

"I'll explain everything, but we don't have much time. This facility is under attack. My name is Miranda, and I need you to trust me."

"Where are you?"

"I'm in Security, trying to reverse--someone hacked into our systems, trying to kill you. I can make sure you get to the shuttles from here. Maybe I can slow them down for you."

"Who is--"

"Look out!" she interrupts me, and I whirl with my pistol up to face down a security mech, a simple humanoid LOKI model. My finger hits the trigger before I've fully registered what I'm looking at, and without its head, the mech collapses.

Reflexes are still intact with guns as well as biotics. Good.

"Keep moving," says Miranda. "We need to get you to the shuttles."

I take the stairs two at a time. "What am I wearing?" I ask her. I can't pick up the mech's clips--where would I store them?

"Not the time for that! Security mechs are closing in on your position. Take cover."

I don't need a voice to tell me how to fight. I evade the mechs' gunfire, shoot their arms off, and slam them into each other with my biotics. One explodes on impact, which takes out the legs of another. Between the biotic energy and the adrenaline flowing through me, I feel great--I feel alive. Even the pain from when I awoke is gone.

I'm _back._

The next hallway has more bodies in it. They're all wearing the same uniform as the last one, white and black, with the same elongated hexagon symbol. The windows are smeared with blood, and the hallway beyond them is full of smoke. Security mechs did all this?

"Don't waste time," Miranda tells me, "I can't keep the mechs distracted for long. There are grenades up ahead, take them."

Up ahead is a balcony attached to a small lift leading to the hallway below, which is currently swarming with those LOKI mechs. I toss a grenade down at the mechs and hop over the balcony myself into the space it cleared. My biotics soften my fall, and I project that same energy into a shockwave of force out into what mechs remain. _Fuck,_  it feels good. It's like the power within me has been building up while I've been asleep, and it's desperate to let loose.

"There were other grenades," says Miranda.

"What did you want me to do, shove them up my ass?" I ask, running through the next doorway. I'm loathe to take clothing off a corpse, but it's starting to feel like a better option.

Her sigh sounds far more distorted and static-ridden than her voice has so far. "You're doing…" More static. "-Shepard. Head to the…" She's breaking up, and I can hear gunfire on her end. "--meet you… Shepard? --read me? I've got… closing in…"

Shit.

"Miranda?" I call out, but she doesn't respond. I'm alone again. So far, Miranda and I are the only survivors. This facility must be almost all civilian, totally reliant on mechs for their security. Problem is, judging by the sheer amount of mechs, they needed heavy security. Nothing needing that much security should be entirely unmanned. The Alliance sure wouldn't allow it.

I hit the green holo on the door in front of me; instead of forward, it leads to a small office. The holoscreens on the walls are still active, displaying parts of a human body in various kinds of medical scans. They all have the same label: SHEPARD 78-99-090. My name. These scans are my body.

There's an active computer terminal on the desk. It looks like someone was halfway through updating a log before they were interrupted, probably by the mechs lying in pieces on the other side of the room. I scroll through the log and play an entry close to the start. Maybe this will give me an idea of what exactly I'm doing here.

Miranda's face appears in the terminal's holoscreen; I recognize her from my first awakening. A symmetrical rectangular face, pale skin, and long dark hair. She's beautiful, but also off-putting--her eyes are a little too big, her face a little too symmetrical to be natural. _"Test subject has been recovered,"_  her holo-self says, _"but the damage is far worse than we initially feared. In addition to the expected burns and internal injuries from the explosion, subject has suffered significant cellular breakdown due to long-term exposure to vacuum and sub-zero temperatures. Despite the extent of the physical trauma, Wilson assures me subject is salvageable. The Lazarus Project will proceed as planned."_

Test subject. She's talking about _me._  Long-term exposure to vacuum--she can't mean what that sounds like. I pick a later entry at random.

_"Progress is slow, but subject shows signs of recovery. Major organs are again functional, and there are signs of rudimentary neurological activity. In an effort to accelerate the process, we've moved from simple organic reconstruction of the subject to bio-synthetic fusion. Initial results show promise."_

The word she uses-- _reconstruction_ \--sends a chill down my spine. Another entry--there has to be more.

_"Physical reconstruction of subject is complete, but we still need to evaluate all mental and neurological functions. Our orders were clear: make Diana Shepard who she was before the explosion--the same mind, the same morals, the same personality. If we alter her identity in any way, if she's somehow not the woman she used to be, the Lazarus Project will have failed. I refuse to let that happen."_

Did I die?

I barely remember the explosion she talks about. I remember the Normandy, and an attack from an enemy who sliced her to pieces. I remember ushering Joker to an escape pod and being torn from it by the ship blasting apart. I remember watching the pods fire off into space. I remember thinking of Liara.

Liara. God, _Liara._  Did she survive? Who else did we lose? The logs have left me with too many questions and not enough answers. I have to move on.

As I'm about to leave the office, however, another terminal catches my eye. This one has different logs open, and I notice the name WILSON, F. I recognize that name, too. His logs are audio only, a low and gruff masculine voice. _"Log update: The cost of this project is astronomical--over four billion credits so far. But nobody seems to care that we've gone over budget. I don't know where the boss gets all his money… maybe it's better not to know. I just wish he'd kick a little more in my direction once in a while."_

Did he say four _billion?_  I've never seen that much money in my entire life.

_"Log update: I can't figure Miranda out. As project director, she should be ecstatic at all the progress we've made. But she's still the same old ice queen. Maybe she's worried Shepard might become the new favorite. Or maybe she's just a pure, cold-hearted bitch."_

I don't think I like Wilson.

The hallway leads past the office and up a flight of stairs. They're all empty of mechs, but there is a large and clunky YMIR model clonking its way past a window on my way up the stairs. Fortunately, I'm out of its line of sight; an YMIR can punch through a window easily, and the last thing I want to do is fight one in my underwear armed with nothing but biotics and a half-empty sidearm.

There's gunfire on the other side of the next door. Could people still be alive and fighting? I peer around the door as it opens so I won't get caught in the crossfire. The room is a couple of bridges connecting two wings of the station; it's an open space, but the bridges have a wide enough gap there's no way to get from one to the other. A lone man is using my bridge's glass railing as cover and firing back at the LOKI mechs on the other bridge.

One man, but he is the first living human I've seen since waking up, and I can't help but feel relieved.

His body glows with the familiar blue of biotics, and he sends a leash of energy across the bridge to pull a mech out into the gap. He's presumably setting up for a clean shot, but he's made an opportunity for me--I send a bolt of biotic energy of my own out to the mech. In the frictionless environment mass effect fields make, the biotic force colliding into the mech makes it fly back at exponential velocity. When it hits the mech left on the bridge, they both explode.

The man swivels around immediately. "Shepard? What the hell? What are you doing here? I thought you were still a work in progress." He's a black man with a strong, triangular build and a buzz cut, military style, wearing a form of armored crew fatigues. A marine--only he's wearing that same insignia.

"Are you with Miranda?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says, "sorry. I forgot this is all new to you right now. I'm Jacob Taylor. I've been stationed here for--"

"Hostiles detected," a LOKI mech on the other bridge interrupts him.

I slide into cover beside him while he takes out its head with his gun. It's the same sidearm I'm using, and he's good with it. "Things must be worse than I thought if Miranda's got you running around," he says to me. "I'll fill you in, but we better get you to the shuttle first."

Finally. Someone with answers. "What's with the mechs?"

"Security. Usually they fight for us--somebody must've hacked them. That should be impossible, unless you have access." He's glaring--not at me, but at the traitor this implies. "We've gotta get you out of here, Shepard."

"Where is here? This doesn't look like an Alliance facility."

"It isn't. I can't say much more than that for now. The Alliance officially declared you killed in action. The whole galaxy thinks you're dead."

So it is just as bad as those logs made it sound. Maybe worse.

I want to ask more, but more LOKIs show up. I take out one with my sidearm and another with my biotics. Jacob handles the other two. He pushes himself to his feet with a sigh once they're gone. "This is not the way I wanted to meet you," he mutters.

"Did you have it all planned out?" I ask, cracking a smile.

"Not exactly, but I definitely thought it'd be with less gunfire and--uh--more clothes. I'll see if we can find you a spare uniform or something on the way. Oh, and here." He hands me a thermal clip from the utility pockets on his fatigues. "I'm guessing you don't have extras of your own."

"Yeah, more clothes would be great," I say, reloading. "What's your job here, Jacob?"

"Depends on who you ask. Technically, I'm Miranda's top lieutenant, but I'm just a soldier. I served five years in the Alliance before this. Now I'm in charge of the station's security. Usually a lot more dull than this. Normally I don't fire my gun unless it's target practice."

"So--Miranda. She was talking to me over the intercom after I woke up. We lost contact before I ran into you. Didn't say anything about who she was, just her name."

"Miranda Lawson is the station's ranking officer. She led the Lazarus team. It was her job to bring you back to life, no matter what." That explains the logs. "Should've guessed she'd try to save you. She's not about to give up on you now. You said you lost contact--could you tell what was happening?"

"There was some gunfire and an explosion right before I lost her," I tell him. He looks more concerned than before.

"She knows how to take care of herself," he says, "but I hope she's okay."

"Do you know anything about this attack? Who's behind it, what they're after?"

"Damned if I know. I was getting ready for some shut-eye, then--bam! Bunch of explosions. Next thing I know, every damn mech in the place starts shooting--at us. I'm guessing it had to be an inside job. You'd need top security access to hack all the mechs."

It's tempting to ask about the Normandy, how long I've been away, what I've missed--but I resist, for now. I need to stay focused. This is a mission like every other. Staying focused and in the moment is key to surviving.

"Ready to get the hell off this station?" asks Jacob.

"Hell yes," I say. "What's the quickest way to those shuttles?"

"Depends where the mechs are thickest. It's probably best if we--"

He's interrupted by his omni-tool's radio blinking and buzzing at him. A voice comes through. "Anyone on this frequency? Anybody still alive out there? Hello?"

I know that voice.

"Wilson? This is Jacob. I'm here with Diana Shepard. Just took out a wave of mechs over in D Wing."

"Shepard's alive?" Wilson sounds caught between shocked and horrified. "How the hell--never mind. You need to get her out of there. Get to the service tunnels and head for the network control room."

"Roger that, Wilson. Stay on this frequency."

Jacob takes point, leading me to the service tunnels Wilson mentioned. "I remember a Wilson checking on me one time when I woke up," I tell him.

"That's him," says Jacob. "He's the chief medical tech. Answers directly to Miranda."

"What can you tell me about this Project?" I ask. "Were there other test subjects?"

Jacob shakes his head. "Only one subject. The whole point was to bring you back--just you. Even that was a challenge."

I follow Jacob down hallways scorched with gunfire, stepping over the occasional body. Jacob makes a grunt of disappointment every time, but he stays focused. Like me, he's a soldier. This isn't the first time we've had to do this, and it won't be the last.

"I know you have barriers, but try to stay behind me if there's no cover," says Jacob as he opens the service tunnel doors. "Don't want to put all that work in just for you to die again."

"I'll try not to waste four billion credits," I say, offering him a smile. He raises an eyebrow, clearly wondering how I got that figure. I'll tell him later.

As soon as the doors open, we hear the familiar sounds of LOKI mechs waking up. "Damn it, Wilson!" says Jacob. "This room is crawling with mechs!"

"The whole station is crawling with mechs!" Wilson complains over Jacob's omni-tool radio. "I'm doing the best I can."

Jacob shoots the head off one, and I slam the other two into the wall with my biotics. "Find us another route out of here, Wilson," says Jacob. "Preferably one that doesn't lead straight into an enemy squad!"

Wilson is quiet for a moment while we open the next doors, but then we hear him scream over the radio. "Oh God, they found me! Help!"

"Wilson! Where are you?"

"Server room B! Hurry! They're out of control!"

We run down the next hallway and up a set of stairs. This station is a maze. "Hacked or not, it's hard to imagine these mechs being 'out of control'," I say to Jacob. He shrugs.

"Oh, God!" Wilson comes over the radio. "I'm hit! They shot me!"

Jacob curses under his breath and picks up the pace. I keep after him. My feet hurt from running on a metal floor bare, but I've been through way worse. I'll be fine.

Finally, we get to server room B. A voice calls to us as soon as the door open. "Jacob! Shepard! Down here!"

I know his face. He's a white guy, bald but unshaven, and overall tired and haggard-looking. He's wearing the white, gray, and black fatigues I've seen on most of the dead bodies I've passed over. They're not unlike the uniforms we wear on Alliance ships, but the colors are very different--and there's that emblem again. He's sitting behind a pile of crates in the room; the servers are actually behind a large window across from him. There's a terminal nearby, and it's been destroyed, probably by guns.

There's a distinct lack of mechs.

"Bastards got me in the leg," he says, indicating the blood-soaked part of his pants.

"You were there the first time I regained consciousness," I say.

"Yeah," he says. "That was me." He grunts in pain as Jacob tries to get a better look at the wound by tearing open the pant leg and twisting his leg around into the light, maybe not being as gentle as he should be. "How about we talk about this after we fix my leg?"

"Should be some medi-gel in the first aid station over there," says Jacob, straightening up. "I'll get it, hang on."

"You take out the mechs yourself?" I ask. This situation does not feel right at all.

"Uh, yeah," he says, holding the torn-off cloth to his wound to staunch the bleeding. "I'm no soldier, but I know how to shoot."

I can't ask further; Jacob's back with the medi-gel. He applies it to the wound, and the gel hardens on it in seconds, like a synthetic scab. Wilson gets to his feet unsteadily, but he stays there. "Thanks," he says. "Never thought you'd save my life, Shepard. Guess that makes us even now."

Save his life. Right. He was shot in the thigh, but nowhere near an artery. He could have gotten the medi-gel himself in that state. Why wait for us?

"I thought maybe I could shut down the security mechs," he continues, "but whoever did this fried the whole system. Completely irreversible."

"We didn't ask what you were doing," says Jacob. He sounds as suspicious as I feel. "Why do you even have security mech clearance? You were in the bio wing."

"Weren't you listening? I came here to try and fix this. Besides, I was shot! How do you explain that?"

Only gun in the room is by his feet, that's how, but this isn't getting us closer to the shuttles. "You're all strangers to me," I say. "Let's get someplace safe, _then_  we'll sort out whose fault it is."

"Right, Shepard," says Jacob. "We need to find Miranda. We can't leave her behind."

"Forget about Miranda," protests Wilson. "She was over in D wing. The mechs were all over that sector. There's no way she survived."

"A bunch of mechs won't drop Miranda. She's alive."

"Then where is she? Why haven't we heard from her? There are only two possible explanations: she's either dead or she's a traitor!"

Oh for God's sake. "I was talking to Miranda earlier. She was trying to help me evacuate," I say. Which we should be doing.

"Okay, maybe she's not a traitor," says Wilson. "But that doesn't change the facts. We're here, she's not. We need to save ourselves."

"Miranda mentioned meeting me somewhere," I say to Jacob. "I'm sure if we find the shuttles, we'll find her, one way or another."

Jacob nods. "That's what she'd do, too. The shuttle bay is only--"

Gunfire interrupts him; it seems the mechs arrived, better late than never. We all take cover behind Wilson's crates. "Stay down, Wilson," Jacob tells him. "Let us take care of this."

I look around the crates. Six LOKI models, grouped up from going through the door. They're a perfect target for biotics, but it has to be big. The familiar energy sparks inside me, but it's more intense than ever before. I pull and pull on it, making the spark inside me as bright as I can, until finally I let loose. For a single instant, everything--all surroundings, all sensation, all thought--are collapsed into an overwhelming feeling of heat and light, and then, with an explosion of force and energy, I'm in the middle of the mechs, throwing them into the walls. Two are smashed into pieces immediately, but the others turn all their fire on me, which my barrier absorbs. I throw a shockwave into three of them, sending them flying, and punch the last one, my fist wrapped in a mass effect field to add to the force of it.

"Holy shit," says Wilson.

"That was a biotic charge," says Jacob. "I've seen asari do it, but never a human."

"I don't think I've ever done that before, either," I say, patting my abdomen like I'm trying to make sure it's still there. And honestly, I kind of am. I think I just converted myself to pure energy and back--I didn't know I _could_  do it, but I'm sure doing it again in the future.

Jacob approaches me with caution in his eyes. "Okay, you took them down, but this is getting tense. Shepard, if I tell you who we work for, will you trust me?"

"This really isn't the time, Jacob," says Wilson.

"We won't make it if she's expecting a shot in the back."

"If you want to piss off the boss, it's your ass," Wilson says with a shrug, leaning back on his good leg.

"The Lazarus Project," says Jacob to me, "the program that rebuilt you… It's funded and controlled by Cerberus."

Cerberus. Now I know where I've seen that emblem. The Alliance calls them terrorists; what I've encountered of them is more accurately termed mad science. They experimented on just about everything they could get their hands on, trying to find ways to control it. Thorian thralls, geth husks, rachni drones--and thresher maws. "I know Cerberus," I say. They're responsible for the worst twenty-four hours of my life. "Ran into you people a few times when I was investigating Saren. Why would you want me back?"

"Look, I'd be suspicious too," says Jacob. "But right now, we have to work together. I thought you deserved to know what's what. Once we're off the station, I'll take you to the Illusive Man. He'll explain everything. I promise."

"Illusive Man?" I repeat. That's a new one on me. "Is he in charge of all this?"

"Yeah," says Wilson. "That's not his real name, of course. Nobody knows who he really is."

"It was a code name the Alliance used for him," adds Jacob. "It kind of stuck."

"Well," I say, "if I won't get any answers here, let's get moving."

Cerberus. I don't know what I was expecting, but they certainly weren't it. None of the labs I raided back in the day were anything near this size or this advanced. Maybe they've grown in the time I've been gone--or maybe I merely saw the tip of the iceberg. A pro-human splinter group with roots in Alliance black ops, Cerberus went rogue and into crime and terrorism long before I joined the Alliance. Their mandate, as I was told, is to ensure the preservation and advancement of humanity. I can't fault the mission statement, but they take some bizarre and sometimes horrifying paths to do it.

Like trying to resurrect the dead. And succeeding.

The shuttle bay is a series of platforms, bridges, and stairways filling the space between the shuttles. Most of them are still in the bay, unused. Also in the bay are over a dozen mechs, and that's just what I can see from my cover at the doorway. No wonder the shuttles are still there--no one's been able to get to them and survive.

"Shepard, Wilson, stay behind me," says Jacob. "Make for the stairs straight ahead, then take the first door on the right."

"Understood," I say.

Cerberus or not, five years of Alliance service shows in Jacob. He and I have fallen into a rhythm during our trek through the station, and I can really feel the difference now that Wilson's at my side. Wilson's not a bad shot, but he's not a soldier. He doesn't feel the flow of combat like we do. Jacob, to his credit, is excellent at keeping Wilson out of harm's way. If a LOKI tries so much as aiming at him, it gets its arms or head blown off immediately. He clearly has plenty of experience escorting civilians, probably more than I do.

"There!" Wilson rushes forward to the door ahead of us. "C'mon, through here. We're almost at the--"

The door opens, and standing on the other side is a beautiful woman with a pale, too-symmetrical face and dark hair. The Lazarus Project's director herself.

"Miranda!" Wilson sounds more than shocked. He's scared. "But--you were--"

She shoots him before he can finish. "Dead?"

"What the hell are you doing?" bursts Jacob, staring down at Wilson's body.

"My job," she says. "Wilson betrayed us all."

I keep my eyes on Miranda. She's shorter than I am, even in her high heeled boots, and far more slender, with a perfect hourglass figure shown off by her tight fitting suit, still perfectly black and white without a spot of dirt or blood. In all this chaos and carnage, her clean and orderly perfection stands out. It's like she stepped out of a vid.

It's chilling.

"Nothing about his story lined up," I say, "but you should have taken him alive. See what he knew." Instead, we're left with more unanswered questions.

"Too risky," she says. "I've put too much time and effort bringing you back to life to let you get killed now."

"You really think Wilson's capable of that?" says Jacob.

She looks down at the body at her feet. "Not anymore."

"If you say so," I say. "Now what?"

"Come on." She gestures to the shuttle behind her. "Let's grab this shuttle and get out of here. My boss wants to speak to you."

"You mean the Illusive Man? I know you work for Cerberus."

"Ah, Jacob," she says, smirking. "I should have known you conscience would get the better of you."

"Lying to the commander isn't the way to get her to join our cause," he says flatly.

"What does Cerberus want with me?" I ask her.

"You should ask the Illusive Man when you see him," she says. "He poured virtually unlimited resources into Lazarus. Obviously he has some kind of plan for you."

She doesn't know. Jacob doesn't know. I understand that kind of faith in command, but it's not a faith I have anymore. I just feel dread.

In the Alliance, I at least knew the names of my commanding officers.

She's already walking to the shuttle. "What about survivors?" I say as we catch up.

"This is the evac area. If they're not here now, they're not coming."

Jacob catches my eye and nods. The meaning is as clear as it is heartbreaking: we're all that's left. The shuttle door opens and she motions us in before hopping into the pilot's seat to get it moving.

As soon as I'm strapped in, I close my eyes and let everything wash over me. All the thoughts and feelings I'd held back for the sake of survival flood through me like water through an open dam. I died. I was dead, actually dead, and by some miracle a collection of xenophobic revolutionaries managed to revive me, like a Bolshevik-backed Frankenstein. Right now my entire universe is me, two total strangers, and an Elanus Risk Control M-3 Predator heavy pistol. After Akuze, I could get through anything by telling myself I'd known worse. This? This outdoes Akuze. I don't think it can physically get worse than this. Undeath has to be rock bottom.

I don't realize I'm crying until I taste my own tears, but once I do, I can't stop them. I bury my face in my hands and weep for the life I had, the life I will never know again. I may be alive, but this isn't my life.

"Shepard," says Miranda, in a far gentler tone than I've heard from her so far. She lays a folded uniform, the same as Wilson's, in my lap.

"Thanks," I manage, wiping the tears from my face. "I'm sorry, this is just..."

"A lot," she finishes. "You don't need to apologize." She actually seems a little awkward now, out of her depth.

Jacob makes a show of hiding his eyes while I change. He didn't need to--I'm sure it's nothing he's never seen before--but the gesture is actually comforting. What he's really doing is showing me respect. It's a good sign. I'm not sure I can trust him, considering his employers, but I can't help but like him. He reminds me of Kaidan, if only because they're both good soldiers. Kaidan--did he make it out?

"What happened to the Normandy?" I ask, adjusting the fit on the uniform with the tiny switches hidden in the seams. Cerberus and the Alliance seem to get their uniforms from the same place.

"The Normandy didn't survive," says Jacob, "but just about everybody made it out. A few servicemen on the lower decks didn't make it, but the non-Alliance crew--the asari, Liara? And the turian and quarian. They survived."

Liara's alive. I hadn't realized how much that would mean until just now, like a weight on my heart has been lifted. I'll see her again.

Miranda is back in Ice Queen mode. She crosses her legs while examining the screen projected from her omni-tool. "Before you meet with the Illusive Man," she says, "we need to ask a few questions to evaluate your condition."

"Come on, Miranda, more tests?" protests Jacob. "Shepard took down those mechs without any trouble. That has to be good enough."

She rolls her eyes. "It's been two years since the attack. The Illusive Man needs to know that Shepard's personality and memories are intact. Let me ask the questions."

"Did you say two years?" I say. It's been longer than I thought. "I've been gone that long?"

"Two years and twelve days," says Jacob, "and you were on an operating table for most of it."

"The sooner we start, the sooner we can be done," says Miranda pointedly.

"Ask away," I say, sitting back down across from the two of them. It feels so much better to be in a uniform, and it's actually pretty comfortable to boot.

"I'll start with personal history. Diana Kathryn Shepard, our records show that you were born in 2154, on Arcturus Station. April 11 on Earth. You grew up on Mindoir, but you lost your family when batarian slavers attacked the colony."

I nod along, wondering when a question is coming. I know all this.

"David Anderson was part of the Alliance rescue team that found you and the colony. You enlisted in the Alliance two years later. Was your encounter with Anderson motivation to enlist?"

"Of course," I say, thinking back. "I saw the best of the Alliance in Anderson. He wasn't there to kill batarians, but to save people. I've tried to live up to that example."

"You were recommended for N7 training after you survived a thresher maw attack which wiped out the rest of your team," continues Miranda. "Do you remember that?"

"I lost a lot of friends that day," I say. "Going through something like that changes you. It can break you, if you let it."

"I read the report," chimes in Jacob. "Fifty marines died on Akuze. You were the only one who lived."

I'm sorely tempted to tell them what I later found out about Akuze--that it was a setup by Cerberus to examine how thresher maws kill. We were lured there specifically to be killed and eaten. I wasn't even the only survivor; a man I thought had died with the rest had actually been taken captive and tested. Extensively. They utterly broke him. I'm tempted--but I don't say it. Considering what Miranda and Jacob don't know about their own project, it's unlikely they know what the rest of the organization is up to. That's how groups like this work--it's how they keep their secrecy. They wouldn't believe me, and I don't know how much Cerberus knows I know in the first place. I need to put my safety over my spite.

"Let's try something more recent," continues Miranda. "Virmire, where you destroyed Saren's krogan cloning facility. You had to leave one of your squad behind to die in the blast. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams was killed in action. It was your call--why did you leave her behind?"

I think of Ashley, and Kaidan, and that moment. The memories are slow to come, and when they do, they're foggy. It's like remembering a dream--the more I try to grasp for detail, the less I have. All my memories are like this, but I knew what I wanted to say before. This time, the feeling is stronger than the thought, and it's hard to put it into words. "I left a friend to die that day," I eventually manage, working the words out one at a time, "and I didn't do it casually. But I had to save as many people as I could. Ash gave her life for the rest of the team. Without her, I couldn't have stopped Saren. She died a hero."

"We aren't judging your decision," says Jacob. "Everybody at Cerberus knows that cloning facility had to be destroyed."

"Shepard," says Miranda, "think back to the Citadel, after the Alliance saved the Destiny Ascension, and you killed Saren. What happened next?"

"You mean after Sovereign took control and turned Saren into a cybernetic undead abomination?" I say. She gives me a cold stare that's actually pretty funny but dangerous to laugh at. "Humanity was offered a seat on the Council. I recommended Anderson for the position. He didn't actually run, did he?"

"I don't think that's how Councilors are chosen," says Jacob thoughtfully.

"Regardless," says Miranda, brushing straight past the unspoken question, _"Captain_  Anderson is now _Councilor_  Anderson. Though from what I hear, he preferred life in the military."

"Still, good to know the human Council member isn't going to put politics ahead of defense," says Jacob.

Miranda closes the omni-tool screen she was taking notes on. "Your memory seems solid. There are other tests we really should run--"

"Come on, Miranda, enough with the quizzes," says Jacob. "The memories are there, and I can vouch for Shepard's combat skills personally."

"I suppose you're right," concedes Miranda with a sigh. "We'll have to hope the Illusive Man accepts our little field test as evidence enough."

* * *

We arrive on another station, and the Cerberus emblem greets us as we climb out of the shuttle. Miranda leads the way down sterile steel hallways, like the Lazarus station but without the scorch marks, to a small lounge area with windows, computer terminals, and surprisingly, an armor locker with a mirror. I look into the locker and find a modular hardsuit with the familiar N7 stripe. This is where they planned to take me all along.

The mirror catches my eye, and I get a good look at myself for the first time since waking up. For the most part, my face is exactly as I remember it: olive skin, square face, hooked nose, wide mouth, deep blue hooded eyes, narrow chin. My hair is still growing in; my eyebrows aren't as thick they were, and the top of my head is covered in the black fuzz of new growth. The scars I had are gone, replaced by new ones in right angles glowing faintly green--the sure sign of cybernetics holding me together. Jacob was right--I wasn't ready yet. It feels weird to think of myself like that, like I'm a half-finished prototype, but I can't find any other way to describe it.

"I don't know the details," says Jacob, leaning against the wall beside me, "but I'm pretty sure you're not a clone."

"Thanks," I say. "I think." That makes him laugh.

"You're still you," he says. "You just might have a few extra bits and pieces now."

"The Illusive Man is waiting for you in the other room, Commander," says Miranda from her terminal.

Right. Illusive Man. I straighten my uniform, take a deep breath, and open the door.

The room is entirely empty except for a set of stairs leading down to a glowing orange circle on the floor. I can feel my fuzz stand on end, but I stand in the circle anyway. As soon as I do, a holographic grid rises around me and vanishes--along with the rest of the room. I'm looking into someplace completely different now.

The image of a blue and orange star takes up the far wall of this place, and silhouetted against it is a man in a chair. I can barely make out his features; he's lit only by the image and the holoscreens around him. He looks middle-aged, probabLY white, still with a full head of hair. His suit is mostly black except for the open white collar. Even from here, even through the holograms, I can see his eyes. They've been entirely replaced, and the cybernetics glow blue. It reminds me of another man with glowing blue eyes: Saren.

"Diana Shepard," he says through a long drag of a cigarette.

"Illusive Man," I reply. "I thought we'd be meeting face to face."

"A necessary precaution," he says. "Not unusual for people who know what you and I know."

I fold my arms. "From what I hear, I cost you a fortune. Why'd you do it?"

"For the defense and preservation of humanity. I didn't spend two years and billions of credits bringing you back to serve as a common soldier--but humanity is up against the greatest threat of our brief existence."

"The Reapers." It all comes back to this. I knew it would.

"Good to see your memory is still intact," he says pleasantly as he snuffs his cigarette. "How are you feeling?"

"Cut to the chase," I say. "What are the Reapers doing that made you decide to bring me back?"

He rises from his chair and steps closer, and the cybernetics of his eyes are clearer now. Three dots connected by a ring around the pupil. The shape is familiar, and I feel chills up my spine. "We're at war," he says. "No one wants to admit it, but humanity is under attack. While you've been sleeping, entire colonies have been disappearing. Human colonies. We believe it's someone working for the Reapers, just as Saren and the geth aided Sovereign. You've seen it yourself--you bested all of them. That's just one reason we chose you."

"If this is a threat against humanity, you need to mobilize the Alliance."

"They suffered substantial losses fighting Sovereign. They're rebuilding, still stretched too thin to waste resources verifying the Reaper threat. Blaming the abductions on pirates and mercs is easier--and more convenient."

"Yet fighting a 'war' doesn't seem like Cerberus. Why are you involved?"

"We're committed to the advancement and preservation of humanity. If the Reapers are targeting us, trying to wipe us out, Cerberus will stop them. If we wait for politicians or the Alliance to act… no more human colonies will be left."

Politicians? Who mentioned those? This sounds like a personal bug up his ass. I file the observation away for later, but for now, I'm here for a purpose. "Sovereign was trying to harvest _all_  life in the galaxy," I point out. "Why would the Reapers target a few human colonies?"

"Hundreds of thousands of colonists have vanished," he says. "I'd say that fits the definition of 'harvesting.' Nobody's paying attention because it's random and the attacks occur in remote locations. I don't know why they've suddenly targeted humanity. Maybe you got their attention when you killed one of them."

I need to think. "You could've trained an entire army for what you spent to bring me back," I say, hoping to get him talking to buy myself time.

It works. "You're unique," he says. "Not just in ability or what you've experienced, but in what you represent. You stood for humanity at a key moment. You're more than a soldier--you're a symbol. And I don't know if the Reapers understand fear, but you killed one. They have to respect that."

There it is again--"killed one." I didn't kill Sovereign alone. It took the entire Fifth Fleet to destroy the massive, living spaceship, not one marine with a shotgun. But--when Sovereign took control of Saren's corpse and attacked us. We did kill that, and Sovereign's mind was still active in the body when we did--and that's when its shields fell. I destroyed the mind; the Fleet destroyed the body.

Oh shit. That's what he means.

He's right about two things: one, I've set myself against the Reapers as a sworn enemy, and two, that means fighting them at every turn in every battlefield. He is not my friend, but he's made it clear he's the enemy of my enemy. He wouldn't have done all this if he didn't need me, and that need gives me leverage.

"If what you say is true," I say carefully, "if the Reapers are really behind this--I'll consider helping you."

"I'd be disappointed if you accepted any of this without seeing for yourself," he says approvingly, turning back to his chair. "I have a shuttle ready to take you to Freedom's Progress, the latest colony to be abducted. Miranda and Jacob will brief you."

Miranda killed a man in cold blood, Jacob's a gun for hire, and he expects me to trust them. "Is this a volunteer job, or am I being volunteered?"

"You always have a choice, Diana. If you don't find the evidence we're both looking for, we can part ways."

I highly doubt that.

"But first," he continues, "go to Freedom's progress. Find any clues you can. Who's abducting the colonies? Do they have any connection to the Reapers? I brought you back. It's up to you to do the rest."

He presses a button on his chair, and he and his star-backed office vanish. I am alone.

I'm more alone than I've ever been.


	2. A Long, Bizarre Nightmare

Mass effect is the singular technology that shapes our entire civilization. It is created by a rare material we call element zero--the name comes from the fact that no one's sure if it's an element at all--that is created when solid matter is affected by the energy of a star going supernova. When element zero is exposed to an electric current, it releases dark energy. The result is a mass effect field that changes the very mass of all objects within it. A positive current increases mass; a negative current decreases it. Everything in modern life, from artificial gravity to construction materials to starships to firearms, has mass effect as a driving technology.

We learned mass effect from what was left to us by the Prothean, a long-extinct race with remnants and ruins all over the galaxy. The most important remnants, the ones that make interstellar travel truly possible, are the mass relays. They are massive creations that create corridors of massless space-time between them, which we call hyperspace. In hyperspace, the laws of physics bend so far they barely apply at all. Starship drives can fly just past the speed of light; mass relays ignore it outright. They subvert relativity and time dilation. They're the reason humans have colonies outside earth. We believed those too were the remains of the Prothean.

We were wrong.

The mass relays were built by something far more ancient and malevolent. The Prothean name for them--the only name I have--is _Reapers._  They are living starships of incredible size, power, and intelligence, like nothing we could ever make. They hibernate in dark space, between galaxies, for eons before returning to harvest all advanced organic life from the galaxy. The mass relays are their creations. The crucial infrastructure they provide, shaping galactic civilization, is all part of the plan. Like a trellis for a vine, we develop and evolve around the mass relays, and therefore we are useful for their purposes. I still don't know what purpose that is. All I know is that the harvest means the death of every single person in the galaxy.

Sovereign was a vanguard. He watched over us, waiting until we had developed to the right level--I couldn't tell you what metric they use--and when the time was right, he was to activate the largest and most powerful mass relay of all, and let all the Reapers in at once. This relay? The Citadel--the giant space station that is the centre of galactic government. If all had gone to plan, the Reapers would have destroyed millions of people, the leadership that brings our species together, and a good deal of our military power in one fell swoop. Fortunately, the plan was sabotaged fifty thousand years ago by the last of the Prothean.

On the planet Ilos, a handful of Prothean scientists who had been studying the mass relays went into cryostasis through the harvest. They had created a small, one-way mass relay of their own, connected to the Citadel--it had also been the seat of power for their empire, as it had for civilizations before. The station is a cunningly-baited trap, ready for easy use by any who find it. When the Reapers had left, their work complete, the few Prothean who survived traveled to the Citadel with the device they had created, which they called the Conduit. There, they altered the nature of the biosynthetic caretakers of the Citadel, which we call Keepers, that had been created and placed there long ago by the Reapers. The result was that when Sovereign sent his signal to the Keepers, telling them to activate the Citadel's relay, they didn't recognize it. They had been separated from whatever controlling overmind the Reapers are part of.

I know this because of a virtual intelligence on Ilos: the computer that had cared for the scientists in cryostasis, left behind for the next cycle of species to face the Reapers. Vigil. With the trap of the Citadel disarmed, Sovereign had to find another way. He found Saren, a special agent for the Citadel Council, and an army of networked intelligence synthetics known as geth. They sought the Conduit, and the Prothean communication beacons that contained the map to it and Ilos. One beacon was found on the human colony Eden Prime--and that's how I got involved. My ship, the _Normandy,_  was making a shakedown run to Eden Prime the same time Saren attacked it to get the beacon. I learned of the Reaper threat from the beacon, and from there I was on Saren's heels every step of the way. We chased him all the way to Ilos, through the Conduit, to the Citadel.

And there, as the Illusive Man put it, I killed Sovereign. I knew then this wasn't over. I know now how horribly right I was.

* * *

The first thing I notice as I exit the holochamber is the delicious smell. It has to delve deep into my memories and pull the right one out, but for the briefest of moments, I'm six years old eating dinner with my older brother.

"Where did you get macaroni and cheese?" I ask Jacob, looking at the lounge and the three steaming bowls of orange pasta sitting on the table.

"This station's a shipyard," says Jacob, "so they've got a pretty good mess hall. I thought you might be hungry, y'know, considering you haven't eaten in two years."

"Did you know mac and cheese is my favourite?" I pull a bowl towards me, but hesitate before digging in. Something's missing.

"Actually? Yeah." Jacob seems a little sheepish, but he's smiling. "Everyone in Lazarus studied you. Had to get you right, you know? Which reminds me--here."

He tosses me a ketchup bottle. _That's_  what was missing. "Damn, that was in my file?" I say, laughing.

"Well, it said your family was Canadian, so… I figured I'd cover my bases."

He laughs and so do I. "Thank you, Jacob. Really."

"I can't say I know what it's like to have your world pulled out from under you like this," he says, watching me pour ketchup into the bowl. "But I do know what it's like to feel alone. I want you to know I've got your back, even if all that means right now is making mess hall runs."

He's nice. More than nice, really; he's the only genuine person I've met since waking up. Hell, for all that Miranda and the Illusive Man talk about my importance, Jacob's the only one who seems to care about how I'm doing. He reminds me of David Anderson, holding a terrified teenage girl he didn't know, telling her he would keep her safe, and of Kaidan Alenko, bringing extra rations to an alien woman in mourning for her mother, reaching out with words of comfort and sympathy. He's a soldier, to the bone, and he might be a good man, too.

"I'm glad you're here," I say finally. "Damn, this isn't half bad."

"I told you, the mess here is good. Hey Miranda!" He waves to her, still sitting at her computer terminal. "Come on and have some lunch."

"I'm fine," she says dismissively.

_"Eat,_  Miranda."

She makes a show of rolling her eyes as she gets to her feet, but she walks over and takes a bowl. "Happy now, Jacob?" she says, sitting down in a chair slightly separated from us at the table.

"Yes, thank you," he says. I take a big spoonful to keep from smirking. They have a closer relationship than a director and subordinate usually would. They've been friends for a while, maybe more than that.

We eat in silence for a little while, enjoying the macaroni, but soon enough I get Jacob talking. He spent five years in the Alliance, he tells me, and part of that was in an initiative called the 'Corsairs,' where independent starship captains were hired and used for missions that fell outside official Alliance jurisdiction. Something like that could technically be considered black ops, but Jacob at least feels they were still trying to stay on the right side of morality. He complains about the red tape and restrictions, feeling like he could have done so much more without them. Now he reminds me of Garrus Vakarian, so frustrated with the gap between what he was allowed to do and what he saw needed to be done.

I can't really talk--I was a Spectre, guided by nothing more than the Council and my own conscience. And before that… I was good about following the rules, but also knowing how to work around them. I understand that frustration all too well. At the same time, I know why the rules are there. At their best, they give us resources and tools to use against the people abusing their power. As long as those people are beholden to the same rules we are, we can enforce those rules on _them._  The danger comes when the people making the law know that. When they do, rules become their weapons--not ours.

That is my fear about the Illusive Man.

Jacob, like Garrus, got tired of feeling like he was never making a difference. Despite humanity's new place on the Council and the power that came from it, between the politics and bureaucracy, everything he did in the Alliance felt pointless. "Same bullshit, different leaders," he says disparagingly. "Cerberus is different. When colonies go missing, we don't commission a team to write a report to figure out what the hell to do about it. We just go and find out."

Miranda has been quiet this entire time. She hasn't eaten much food--barely half a bowl--and she's had a distant look on her face. I'm not sure if she's been observing us or if she's completely checked out. "So Miranda," I say, a little louder than necessary to get her attention, "what about you?"

"What about me?" she says. Sounds like she checked out.

"If we're working together, I need to know a little about you," I say.

"Worried about my qualifications? I can crush a mech with my biotics or shoot its head off at a hundred yards. Take your pick." She's almost dismissive in the way she says it. I wanted more than a resume, but maybe she's this cagey with everyone.

"Did you serve in the Alliance?" I ask her.

"No," she says. "The Illusive Man recognized my potential and recruited me at a young age. He's very impressed with you, Shepard. I'm eager to see if you can live up to his expectations on this mission."

No, this feels personal. The ice queen thing, that's probably Miranda being Miranda, but now she's turning this on me. It's quite the difference from doing everything in her power to get me out alive from Lazarus Station a couple of hours ago.

"I never got a chance to say how much I appreciate what the Lazarus Project did for me," I say, both to test her hostility and in hopes of smoothing over a possible source.

"I just hope it was worth it," she says. "A lot of people lost their lives on that station."

Ah.

I should have known it was grief, honestly. I should have expected it. Part of me is still in shock, and that too, I'm more surprised by than I should be. Staring down at the empty bowl before me, I realize it's only been a few hours since I woke up. Everything's happened so fast. "Miranda," I say finally, "I'm sorry. About the station, the people, the mechs…"

"It wasn't your fault."

"You were all there for me. I'm the reason this happened at all. I won't let their work or their sacrifice be in vain. I promise."

She sets her own bowl down, only half-eaten if that, her blue eyes fixed on me. "The Illusive Man is taking an incredible risk with you. I hope his gamble pays off."

"I'll make sure it does."

She makes a noncomittal noise in response and gets to her feet. "Now then," she says, "we've got an assignment. We can talk about it or we can do it. Shepard, we've prepared a set of combat armor in the locker there for you. Jacob, if you could ready the arsenal while the commander gets dressed?"

The armor they've given me is a modular hardsuit in the style the Alliance was prototyping two years ago. More cutting edge technology. The idea behind the modular systems is to give soldiers more flexibility and customizability in our gear--essentially, allowing us to mod our armor like we can our guns. This was an option back in the days of tactical vests, but after First Contact they started combining armor with environmental suits and customization fell by the wayside. The modular armor system was an attempt to bring that back.

This suit is Cerberus-made, Jacob tells me, but based on the Alliance designs. "We thought you'd like something a little more familiar." They've even included the armor stripe that indicates my N7 classification. I can't say I don't appreciate it; I worked hard for that badge. It's nice to be able to still show it off, although I'm not technically Alliance anymore.

I stare at myself in the mirror, fully geared up in this black and white armor. Ablative ceramic plating and carbon fiber kinetic padding, completed by the heads-up display in the helmet with a suite of communication, navigation, and battlefield awareness software. I thought in my armor I might feel like me again--that I might feel _human_  again. Instead, I feel less so. I'm as much a weapon as the guns Jacob's laid out behind me.

"What do you know about this colony we're going to?" I ask him. I still have the Predator from Lazarus Station with me, and it's staying with me. Right now, it feels like my only friend.

"It's called Freedom's Progress," says Jacob. "Don't know much else. Guess we'll find out when we get there."

"Freedom's Progress?" Miranda looks up from her omni-tool, where she's been typing something. "It's a typical human settlement in the Terminus Systems. They had a small military force for protection supplemented by mechs and security drones. Average in almost every way, really. Completely unremarkable… until the disappearance."

"Any ideas on what we'll find there?" I say.

"A lot of empty buildings and one giant mystery."

Aside from sidearms for the three of us, Cerberus has provided machine pistols and shotguns. Jacob has taken up a shotgun and Miranda a machine pistol; I take one of everything. They're decent enough guns, but they must not have been high on the budget priority list. Seriously--Elkoss Combine? And the shotgun uses ballistics, not the modern mass accelerator system the turian-made Predator has. Nope, it's an old-fashioned human leadslinger.

Cerberus. Humanity first, unless the alien stuff is cheaper.

"The Illusive Man put us under your command," Miranda tells me once we've boarded the shuttle.

"Are you sure you'll be comfortable following my orders?" I ask.

"We didn't bring you back from the dead just to second-guess you, Commander," says Jacob. "If the Illusive Man says you're in charge, you're in charge."

I'm not so worried about Jacob, but Miranda doesn't seem the type who's used to following orders from anyone, let alone me. Regardless, I have no other choice but to take him at his word. Go to war with the army you have.

If only I knew who my enemy was.

* * *

Shuttles are too slow. I've been stuck in this dark cube for nearly two hours, and all the meditating and mental exercises in the galaxy aren't keeping me from getting bored. Miranda has been fiddling with her omni-tool, as she always is--as busy as she looks, I have a sneaking suspicion she's actually playing _Plants vs Aliens_ \--and Jacob's been staring out the window at the stars the entire time. I don't know what's going through his mind.

"So these other colonies," I say finally, if for no other reason than to break the silence. "Did Cerberus check them out? What did you find?"

"Nothing," says Jacob. "No signs of attack, no corpses. Not even a trace of unusual genetic material to give us a clue. They just disappear, and we've got no target to go after."

"What makes you think this investigation will turn up anything new?"

"At other colonies, official investigators got there first. Sometimes looters or salvage teams as well. We're hoping to be the first ones there this time. Maybe find clues before somebody else disturbs the scene."

Official investigators? So this has been happening in Alliance territory after all. They can't be completely blind to this if it's truly as bizarre as Jacob says. Maybe the "mercs and pirates" excuse won't last for as long as the Illusive Man thinks.

But that's thoughts for later. Right now, I need to focus on the mission. Straying from the present gets you killed. "Our first priority is to look for survivors," I say, leaning my elbows on my knees and my chin on my interlaced fingers.

"That's unlikely, Commander," says Miranda, finally closing her omni-tool. "No one was left at the other colonies. They were completely deserted."

"Be nice to find somebody," says Jacob. "Anything's better than another ghost town."

Freedom's Progress is one of those colonies where the name of the planet and the name of the colony are synonymous. This was probably a serial number before it was colonized. It has water, a breathable atmosphere and gravity within 2 G's of Earth's own, but that's about where the similarities to Earth end. The whole planet is an icy, dusty rock. The colony itself is a hive of prefabricated houses, like pretty much every human colony, set up in a blasted out quarry. We step out of the shuttle onto grey rock dusted with snow, surrounded by grey rock covered in ice. Snow is still falling. Why would anyone choose a planet like this for a settlement?

I look down over the railing of this level of prefabs into the quarry below, and that's when I see the giant drills still lit by the bright floodlights all over the colony. That explains it--this is a mining colony. I push some of the snow aside with my foot and catch the rock glinting back up at me. It could be about any of the metallic elements--platinum, iridium, palladium, half the periodic table is grey--but if most of the planet is made of it, these people may have been part of a metaphorical gold rush.

"Commander," Jacob calls to me from the door of a prefab. "The doors are unlocked."

I follow him into the prefab. There's still food sitting on the tables, slowly turning stale. "It's been less than twelve hours, right?" I say, looking over plates of reconstituted pasta and earth vegetables.

"Less than eight," says Miranda.

"Looks like everyone just got up and left right in the middle of dinner," comments Jacob. He sounds as disturbed as I feel. Some of the plates have been knocked aside, there's some food on the floor and overturned cups, but that's it. No scorch marks from weapons fire, no blood. No bodies.

No signs of battle whatsoever.

No other prefab we explore is any different. All of them are completely empty, and we even find weapons still safely in their lockers, completely unloaded. Ballistics, all of them. Gives an idea of what these people must have been like--pure Earthlings, striking out into the final frontier for the first time in hopes of finding their fortunes. The only good thing I can see so far is that this definitely isn't batarian slavers. I'm too familiar with how they operate; this colony would be way more of a mess if it was batarians. Not this empty shell.

This section of the colony is blocked off from the others by a wall of rock and a large door set into it. Maybe to keep the noise of the drills from disturbing the rest of the colony? The door is unlocked like the prefabs, though, so I warn Miranda and Jacob, then open it.

Gunfire greets us. The quarry creates a gap between our door and the prefab in front of us, and a pair of LOKI mechs are firing at us from across the gap. My barrier shrugs off their fire as I slide into cover, and Miranda is as good as her word and takes out the head of one of them with her machine pistol as she dodges behind a pile of spare drill parts. Jacob yanks the other LOKI off its perch with biotics and blasts it away with his shotgun, shouting a warning to us--more LOKI mechs have appeared from a closer prefab, accompanied by one of the weird little FENRIR models. FENRIRs are quadrupedal mechs chiefly made for search and rescue, but the electric pulses they make to disable hostile electronics mean mercenary groups like using them to flush people out of cover.

This one, for instance, is racing right towards me and Miranda. I let loose a shockwave of biotic force that sends both it and the LOKIs behind it flying into the air, and Jacob follows up with his shotgun. Miranda's biotics warp the space around the LOKI mechs while they're still airborne, and I hear the explosion of force before I see the LOKIs fall in a heap. I'll hand it to her--she's good. Mass effect fields will detonate if they're manipulated the right way, but it's tricky to pull off without getting everyone else caught in the blast. She's mastered it.

"Those mechs shouldn't have been hostile," says Jacob through heavy panting. "They should have recognized us as human."

"Someone's reprogrammed them to attack on sight. We're not alone here." Miranda actually sounds afraid. I guess she didn't expect to encounter the source in person.

We make our way through a prefab and dispatch another group of mechs on the other side. I take the stairs to the next prefab two at a time, but I stop when I get to the door. Voices. Alien voices, at that--I can tell when their words are being filtered through the translator implanted near my auditory nerves. "Did you hear that?" they're saying. "Gunfire outside. The mechs must have found something!"

I give Miranda and Jacob a gesture of warning before hitting the door's hologram, my shotgun at the ready for whatever we find. Inside, four quarians, unmistakable by their exosuits, are huddled around the remains of a FENRIR with their scanners and omni-tools out. The moment they hear the door, they all leap to their feet, weapons free.

"Stop right there!" one of them barks at us as he edges closer. His expression is impossible to see through his suit's mask, but his tone is both fearful and furious.

Another quarian, a woman in purple, rushes forward to diffuse the situation. "Prazza!" she says to the man. "You said you'd let me handle this!"

I know her voice.

She turns towards us, her three-fingered hand raised, and freezes in place. "Wait--Shepard?"

It can't be.

"I'm not taking any chances with Cerberus operatives!" the man, Prazza, tells her angrily.

"Put those weapons down!" she responds just as angrily, barely glancing at him. "Diana," a much softer, tentative tone, "you're--alive?"

It's actually her. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. My comrade--my friend. She's here, in the middle of this tiny mining colony, staring right at me.

"Tali," I breathe. I want to fall to my knees and weep at the sight of her. "It's really you?"

"Is it really _you?_ " she responds. Never mind that I'm still asking myself that question--I need some way to prove to her that I at least _think_  I'm the Diana Shepard she knows. Quickly wracking my memory, I seize upon something she'd definitely recognize.

"Remember Solcrum? The geth outpost with the data we found? The files you wanted to take to the Migrant Fleet. Did they help you complete your Pilgrimage?"

She sucks in her breath. I can only see her luminescent eyes through the faceplate, and as the white glow widens I can imagine a look of surprise. "Yes," she says, and her voice nearly breaks. "It did. I'm Tali'Zorah vas Neema now."

Quarians name themselves by the ships they serve on. _Nar_  is a name for children and indicates the ship they were born on. _Vas_  is for adults and indicates that the ship accepted them as a true member of the crew. She completed her Pilgrimage and gained a place in her society as a full adult. I didn't expect to feel so proud of her--like I would be of my own sister.

Tears prick at my eyes. Twelve hours ago, I was breaking my way out of a glass coffin. This has been a long, bizarre nightmare, and it's only now that I finally feel like I'm actually in reality. Tali rushes forward and flings her arms around me, and I hug her back, heedless of the shotgun still in my hands. "I'm proud of you," I murmur.

"You're really alive," she sniffs.

"Tali!" Prazza brings us both back to the present.

"Prazza," she releases me and turns back to him. "Weapons down. This is definitely Diana Shepard."

Prazza and the other quarians holster their guns and I motion to my people to do the same. "Why is your old commander working for Cerberus?" he asks, sounding no less suspicious.

"Cerberus rebuilt me," I answer honestly, "but I'm not taking their orders. We're here investigating these attacks on human colonies--this one's the latest."

"Likely story," scoffs Prazza. "No organization would commit so many resources only to bring back one soldier."

"You haven't seen Shepard in action, Prazza," says Tali. "Trust me--it was money well spent. Perhaps we can work together," she continues to me. "One of our people was here on Pilgrimage. His name was Veetor. We came to find him."

"A quarian visiting a remote human colony?" I can't help but find it a bit odd. Isn't he supposed to be looking for something valuable for the Fleet?

"Quarians can choose where they go on Pilgrimage," says Tali with a shrug. "Veetor liked the idea of helping a small settlement. He was always ... nervous in crowds."

"She means that he was unstable," says Prazza. "Combine that with damage to his suit's CO2 scrubbers and an infection from an open-air exposure, and he's likely delirious." I'm uncertain on why he's so sure that's the case, but it's as good an explanation as any, especially if Veetor was caught by whatever took the colonists.

"When he saw us landing, he hid in a warehouse on the far side of town," says Tali. "We suspect he also programmed the mechs to attack anything that moves."

That does make sense, especially if he's not thinking straight. It's the reaction of someone who's terrified--I know it well. "Veetor's the only one who can tell us what happened here," I conclude. "You need Veetor, and we need answers. Let's work together to find him."

"Good idea," says Tali gratefully. "We'll need two teams to get past the drones anyway."

"Now we're working with Cerberus?" Prazza is back to angry.

"No, Prazza, you're working for me," snaps Tali. "If you can't follow orders, go wait on the ship."

She's in command, and she's doing so well. I can't help grinning.

"Head for the warehouse through the centre of the colony," she says to us. "We'll circle around the far side and draw off some of the drones to clear you a path."

"Make sure to keep in radio contact," I say. It's a good plan.

"Will do," she says. "Good luck, Shepard. Whatever happens... It's good to have you back."

We split up in opposite directions when we leave through the prefab. I'm still feeling nearly giddy from talking to Tali. "Your people really don't like Cerberus," I say to her over the radio as we make our way through another prefab. "What'd I miss?"

"They killed our people, infiltrated our flotilla, and tried to blow up one of our ships," comes Prazza's voice.

"That's not how I'd have explained it, exactly," says Miranda. "It was nothing personal."

"Not how you would have explained it?" I repeat. I smell a hell of a story here.

"We can argue over who killed who later," says Jacob, punching the head off the LOKI who just tried to shoot him. "Right now, we've got a job to do."

He has a point. "Watch out," Tali says in my ear. "There's a squad of security drones up ahead."

"Thanks for the warning," says Jacob, "we'll take care of them."

Drones are cheap and easy to manufacture, so they're often a major part of colonial life. I'd wondered why we hadn't seen any yet--apparently the quarians are the answer. Half a dozen of them swoop down on us with gunfire and mini-rockets as soon as we're out in the open. Jacob throws out an arm, extending his barrier around myself and Miranda like a knight's shield. Miranda's omni-tool unleashes an arc of electricity, stunning half the drones at once and leaving them open for my shotgun, and we take down the other half the same way.

"Looks like we make a good team," I say to them with a grin while I reload.

"We do!" Jacob sounds as pleased as I feel, but Miranda is rolling her eyes.

It's a good feeling to have a team again. Maybe I can't trust their employer, but I can trust them at my back, and that's important.

We've gone through two more prefabs, hoping we're getting closer to the center of this maze, when Tali's voice comes back through the radio. "Shepard!" She sounds frustrated and more than a little upset. "Prazza and his squad rushed on ahead. I told them to wait, but they wouldn't listen! They want to find Veetor and take him away before you get here!"

"We should have expected this," says Miranda irritably.

"Come on," Jacob says encouragingly, "we can still catch them."

It must be the Cerberus thing. They don't trust that all we want is to talk to Veetor; they think we'll take him hostage. Frankly, I can't blame them. I'm not sure that isn't Miranda's plan in the first place. It sure isn't mine, not that I can tell Prazza that now.

We race through the colony, down ramps and across the snowy rock, destroying the waves of drones Veetor's thrown at every possible threat as quickly as we can. I know this fear. Whatever he saw, whatever happened here, it's terrified him beyond all sense, all conscious thought. He's been reduced to one core instinct--survival. At any cost. This is more than fight, flight, or freeze. It's the epicentre of our very beings. It's the driving instinct that makes us gnaw our own limbs off rather than die in a trap. Life finds a way, because life _has_  to. When there is nothing else, your own heartbeat will sustain you.

I have to find him. Not for Tali or Cerberus, but for his own sake.

"Hurry, Shepard," Tali says when we hit another wall with a giant door. "We're inside the loading docks. Veetor reprogrammed a heavy mech, and it's tearing Prazza's squad apart!"

"They did want to get to Veetor first," comments Miranda.

"Tali, can you get these bay doors open?" I ask while Miranda and Jacob get into cover.

As an answer, the doors open. Between the bay doors and the large prefab serving as a warehouse, there's an open space where supply ships would land. Some large supply crates are still scattered around the space, but not so many we can't see what's going on. In the middle of it all, there's a large YMIR model heavy mech, equipped with heavy armor plating, minigun, and rocket launcher, currently stepping on a quarian's legs while it fires at another caught running to cover. I can see another quarian's body lying nearby.

That biotic energy sparks inside me, bright as a star, then everything is heat and light, and I'm right between the YMIR's minigun and the wounded quarian. My barrier won't last long under minigun fire, so I grab the quarian with a biotic leash and pull him with me while I run for cover. My barrier fails just as I duck behind one of the crates, and I finally let myself breathe. I hear the blast of Jacob's shotgun and the sound of crackling electricity from Miranda's omni-tool. The quarian on the ground beside me is still alive, if barely. It's Prazza. The irony.

I vault over the crate, firing at the YMIR myself. The mech doesn't know who to shoot at, and that's working in our favour. Miranda is staying behind cover as much as possible, throwing out overloading charges and pistol fire at every opportunity. Jacob is a constant distraction, pulling at loose plating with his biotic leash, firing shotgun shells at its weaponry, even yelling taunts and challenges that it probably doesn't understand to get it to look towards the noise. I, meanwhile, hit it with shockwaves to keep it off balance and charge into its back to knock it forward and stumble. Every time I use this charge technique, it's faster to activate and easier to control. I like it.

Finally, we've got it vulnerable. Miranda's overloaded its shields and Jacob's ripped away its armor. "Miranda!" I call to her. "Get ready to warp!" Again, I charge, right as Jacob pulls on it with his leash. Like throwing a paper airplane into a vaccuum tube, the YMIR goes sailing into the air, and that's when Miranda warps its space. The resulting detonation is both blinding and deafening, but when it's over the mech isn't in pieces so much as particles.

"Keelah," says Tali from behind a crate, where she's currently putting medi-gel on Prazza. "That was something else."

"You okay, Tali?" I ask her, looking over the crate.

"I'm fine. Go, this is your chance to find Veetor while I tend to the wounded. He's probably somewhere in the back of the loading bay--in that warehouse."

We waste no more time. I rush up the ramp to the warehouse, Miranda and Jacob at my heels, and open the door.

After the floodlights of the colony, it takes my eyes a few blinks to adjust to the dark room, lit only by a bank of computer screens at the end of the warehouse. Sitting before them is the silhouette of a quarian exosuit. Veetor. I approach slowly, not wanting to startle him, and I hear him muttering to himself. "Monsters coming back. Mechs will protect. Safe from swarms. Have to hide. No monsters. No swarms. No-no-no-no-no."

"Veetor?" I say gently.

"No Veetor," he says, barely registering my presence. "Not here. Swarms can't find. Monsters coming. Have to hide." He's caught in the past, still reliving the attack. How long has he been like this?

"Nobody's going to hurt you anymore," I say, but he doesn't respond. He keeps staring at the screens, his fingers tapping away on the holographic keyboard. Right now, the screens are only showing the default colony status updates. Whatever he's seeing--whatever he's typing--it was finished a while ago. Of course--the mech reprogramming. It's what he's focused on. My eyes pass over the controls until I find what I'm looking for: the power switch.

With one button press, the screens go completely blank. Veetor's fingers still and his head shifts, looking from screen to screen then finally up at me. "You--you're human," he says finally. "Where did you hide? How come they didn't find you?"

"Who didn't find us?" asks Miranda, who has caught up and is standing behind me.

"The--the monsters," says Veetor. "The swarms. They took everyone."

"We're not survivors, Veetor," I say. "We just got here."

I can see the light of his eyes get a little larger, a little brighter, as he processes that. "You don't know," he murmurs. "You didn't see. But I see everything." He turns the screens back on. I almost stop him but think better of it, and I'm glad I did when he opens up video footage that he spreads across all six screens. Security footage. He must have pieced it together manually...

This isn't a warehouse. This is the security office. He fled here because it was the safest place he could think of.

I step back to watch the entire video. There's some kind of strange static throughout the video in the form of rapidly moving black specks everywhere, but it's otherwise clear. There's a couple of prefabs linked by a walkway, and on that walkway are bizarre bipedal insectoid creatures pulling floating cocoons along it.

"What the hell is that?" says Jacob. Veetor hits pause so we can make out the insectoid creatures better, and the static specks also freeze. That's not static--it's part of the recording. Insects. Trillions of flying insects.

"My god," breathes Miranda, leaning over Veetor's chair and squinting at the screen, "I think it's a Collector."

"A Collector?" I repeat. "Is that some kind of alien?"

"They're a species from beyond the Omega-4 relay," she says. "Only a few people have ever seen one in person. They usually work through intermediaries, like slavers or hired mercenaries. If they're involved with the Reapers somehow, that could explain what happened to the colonies."

Veetor skips ahead in the footage and restarts it so we can see a pair of Collectors placing a colonist in one of the cocoons, as if to confirm her.

"The Collectors have advanced technology," says Jacob. "Could they have a weapon that disables an entire settlement at once?"

"The seeker swarms," says Veetor, indicating the insect-static on the footage. "No one can hide. The seekers find you. Freeze you. Then the monsters take you away."

There's one big thing missing here. "Why didn't the Collectors take you?" I ask him.

"Swarms didn't find me," he says. "Monsters didn't know I was here."

"The Collectors aren't known for being careless," says Jacob. "Maybe his envirosuit kept him from showing up on their sensors."

"Or they were using technology specifically designed to detect humans," suggests Miranda. "Only human colonies have been hit."

"Then what are these swarms?" I say.

"Machines like tiny insects," says Veetor. "They go everywhere. Then they find you. Sting you. Freeze you."

"Sounds like minature probes, maybe." Miranda sounds thoughtful. "Find victims, then immobilize them with a stasis field or nerve toxin..."

"What happened next, Veetor?" I ask him.

"The monsters took the people onto the ship, and then they left," he says. "The ship flew away. But they'll be back for me! No one escapes."

"I appreciate what you've told us," I say. "You've been very helpful."

He looks up to me. I can't tell his expression, but when he stands up he bumps his head into my shoulder, like a cat asking for affection. I wrap my arms around him and hold him close until he finally moves away. "I--I'm sorry," he starts, but I shake my head.

"You have nothing to apologize for," I tell him earnestly. "Veetor, no one should ever go through what you did. I know. You're being so strong. We'll make sure those monsters won't hurt people ever again."

The sound of the door opening nearby tells me Tali's finally here. True to her word, she gave us the time we needed to talk to Veetor.

"I studied them," he says. "The monsters. The swarms. I recorded them with my omni-tool. Lots of readings. Electro-magnetic. Dark energy."

"Thank you, Veetor. We'll make good use of this, I promise."

"We need to get this data to the Illusive Man." Miranda, meanwhile, is back in business mode. "Grab the quarian and I'll call the shuttle to come pick us up."

"What?!" bursts Tali, rushing up to us. "Veetor is injured! He needs treatment, not an interrogation!"

Actually, I can't see any obvious ruptures to his suit. I don't think he's been physically wounded at all. He doesn't have to be, to be in his state.

"We won't hurt him," says Jacob, trying to placate her. "We just need to see if he knows anything else. He'll be returned unharmed."

"Your people tried to betray us once already," Miranda points out. "If we give him to you, we'll never get the intel we need."

"Prazza was an idiot, and he and his men paid for it," says Tali, sounding increasingly upset. "You're welcome to take Veetor's omni-tool data, but please, let me take him home."

Home meaning the Migrant Fleet. It hits me all at once that she'll be gone once we leave this planet. "You don't have to take him and go," I say, trying to find a compromise but also wanting to cling to the only friend I have right now. "You could help me." Please help me.

"I want to," she admits, "but I can't. I have my own mission. It's too important for me to abandon, even for you. When it's over--and I'm still alive--we'll see what happens."

"Sounds dangerous," I say. "What are you doing?"

She shoots Miranda a dark look I can feel right through her faceplate. "I don't think Cerberus needs to hear about it. But it's in geth space. That should tell you how important it is."

Geth space means former quarian space. Before they were reduced to the Migrant Fleet, the quarians had a homeworld and colonies not unlike us humans, but three hundred years ago (Citadel Standard Time) they had a robot uprising that forced them into exile. The geth, boogeymen of the galaxy, were quarian creations. A quarian mission in geth space is probably related to the cultural pipe dream of retaking their homeworld. Tali has taken that dream and made it personal.

'Important' is likely not a strong enough word. I can't argue.

"Veetor is traumatized and he needs medical care," I tell Miranda firmly. "Tali will give us the omni-tool data and take him to the flotilla."

"Understood, Commander," says Miranda. She sounds surprised, but she shouldn't be. I'm still the woman I used to be--like she wanted.

"Thank you, Shepard," says Tali, relieved. "I'm glad you're still the one giving the orders."

I can't help it; I hug her again. She returns it, digging her slender fingers into the grooves of my armor. "Good luck on your mission, Tali," I say quietly. I want to say so much more, but Miranda is standing right behind me. Besides, what could I say? What words do I have for this?

"You too, Diana," she replies, finally releasing me. "If I find anything that can help you, I'll let you know."

* * *

I don't realize how completely exhausted I am until I sit down in the shuttle and it all hits me at once. My entire body turns to clay, and I can barely summon the energy to breathe. It's been twelve hours since I woke up on Lazarus Station. Twelve hours of running and gunning with only a few breaks for disturbing conversations and macaroni in between. Twelve hours since I returned to life, twelve hours of facing death again and again.

Is this the life I have now? Cerberus's living weapon. Hunting mechs and Collectors and God only knows what else for the Illusive Man. In return for what?

I left Tali only ten minutes ago and I already miss her.

Tali'Zorah vas Neema. She was the first quarian I ever met--until tonight, the _only_  quarian I'd ever met. She was a young woman on her Pilgrimage, seeking "something of value" to bring to the Migrant Fleet and prove her worth as an adult and a crewmate. That something of value could be anything from raw resources to ship parts to knowledge and information that could make life on the Fleet easier. The Pilgrimage is not only a rite of passage, but one of the few ways the nomadic Fleet can gain resources they can't make or find on their own. What Tali found was Saren's geth army--and through them, me. She's a bright and talented engineer, a fast learner, and inventive to boot, but her greatest asset is her devotion to her friends, her family, and her people. I hope the captain of the Neema knows what an incredible person they have in their crew.

I miss her. I miss all of them--all the Normandy. I miss Ashley reading Tennyson aloud in the mess hall, surrounded by a growing audience. Kaidan setting up board game night and trying out games from not only different human cultures, but a variety of alien ones as well. Garrus in an animated conversation with a couple of the younger servicemen over favourite action vids. Wrex and the engineers talking about vehicles, comparing the Normandy's Mako to the tomkahs common on Tuchanka. I miss Joker's joking and sarcasm and Dr. Chakwas offering "friendly medical advice" while patching me or Ashley up after one of us did something stupid.

I miss Liara. Beautiful, brilliant Liara. Though still a young adult for an asari, she already holds advanced degrees in archaeology (my translator calls her _Doctor_  T'Soni) and is an expert in her field--the Prothean extinction. That's what brought us together: Saren targeted her, as a prisoner or a possible ally, and my team and I rescued her from the dig site his geth had trapped her in. She's clever, creative, and more charismatic than she thinks. For all she considers herself an awkward academic, she's shown an enthusiastic and adventurous spirit. I could listen to her talk about her work for hours and not get bored.

We spent the night together on our way to Ilos, and again after Sovereign fell. A few times after that, actually. I thought--hoped--I might never get the taste of her completely out of my mouth.

I guess being reconstructed from death would do that, though, huh.

"Miranda," I ask, and she looks up from her omni-tool in surprise.

"I thought you might have drifted off, Commander," she says.

"I want to. I feel like I haven't slept in years."

Her smile is brief, but it was definitely there. "The Illusive Man will debrief you in the morning. I've already passed the omni-tool data on."

"Miranda... do you know what happened to the rest of the Normandy crew?"

"They survived, mostly. A few exceptions."

"What about Kaidan Alenko?"

"Still with the Alliance. Promoted, I believe, but I don't know any more than that."

"Garrus Vakarian?"

"Last I heard he'd fallen off the grid entirely. No one knows where he is."

"Urdnot Wrex."

"He returned to Tuchanka. Something about uniting the clans."

"Liara T'Soni."

Her gaze softens a little. "She's become an information broker. Possibly working for the Shadow Broker, but personally, I doubt it."

"An information broker? Liara?"

"It's been two years, Shepard. Things have changed."

So they have. So much has changed. I close my eyes and think about Liara, and I try and fail not to wonder how much she has.

Everything's changed... but me.


End file.
